"I had cast my lot with a Soldier, and where he was was home to me." ~ Martha Summerhayes

Current Affairs

09 January 2012

You never marry the right person. "The primary challenge of marriage is learning how to love and care for the stranger to whom you find yourself married." "The hard times of marriage drive us to experience more of this transforming love of God. But a good marriage will also be a place where we experience more of this kind of transforming love at a human level."

Don't carpe diem. This is for all the weary moms out there. (*Clearly* I should have posted this the other day when I read it, because this has gone all viral and stuff already.)

I decided against linking to the piece of junk newspaper that Drudge pointed me to for this article, so I'll summarize it: Brain-eating amoebae lurk in tap water. Two people have died from doing sinus rinses with unboiled tap water. Boil it or use distilled water! Seriously. You can't say you haven't been warned.

29 November 2011

To quote one of my favorite movies, "There's a lot of *attitudes* going on around here." (Yeah, that line pops into my head all the time. We need to have a Fantastic Mr Fox movie night so my friends will understand me better.) By that I mean, lots of internetty attitudes about the day after Thanksgiving.

To start with, I have to confess that I'm naturally a judger when it comes to Black Friday. Other than a fun morning spent shopping in Flagstaff with my SIL and family a couple of years ago, my main experience of it comes from the news--and we all know how THAT goes. Death, maiming, pepper spray, stepping around people in need of medical attention, spectacular displays of greed. People that stay home on this day only get the Drudge Report version of it. Plus I really don't like crowds.

But for many people--more serious bargain hunters than I--it's a day of fun community with family, friends, and complete strangers that you apparently share a lot with. A day for true shopping adventure stories that requires planning, organization, dedication, and physical stamina (um...none of those are my strong suit?).

So I've realized that if I were to participate, I'd deserve all the judgment that is laid on the entire group. I'd be greedy, ready for a fight, just looking for whatever tickles my fancy, seeking that impulse-shopping high.

But to my friends who scour the papers for deals on good Christmas presents for their families, or who save up for months for this shoppingpalooza, who spread cheer and laughter in this ridiculous activity--more power to ya. I hope you had a great time.

(As long as you didn't go at midnight on Thanksgiving.)*

*Some of my favorite people did that, so obviously I can't be serious.

Thoughts on the Hunger Games preview, spot-on as usual. And here it is! I don't care how old she is, though, Jennifer Lawrence is so awesome. (And if you haven't seen Winter's Bone then you really, really should.)

14 November 2011

You're going to have to wait to hear about my awesome nap at the Renaissance Hotel indoor pool, because I can't resist throwing in my two cents / hopefully gently disagreeing with some people.

Jon Acuff, of Stuff Christians Like fame (a hilarious book that I thoroughly enjoyed) recently posted this --an ostensible calling out of Christian guys for liking "girls with a past" better. It was offensive to women of all different "pasts", unfunny, and not satirical at all. Better, famouser writers than I pointed all of this out. There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth on Twitter. It was a sordid affair. (Mostly on his part.) (And here's a hint: If your humor blog post requires a double Update-Disclaimer section at the beginning of it that's nearly as long as the post itself, maybe something has gone horribly wrong.)

Apparently by coincidence, some other people then started sounding off on the state of evangelicalism in regards to women and sexism in the workplace. And the whole chorus of all these women accidentally calling out together started to sound a whole lot like "Help, help, I'm being repressed!" And it got me thinking about what true oppression looks like.

Oppression is being sold or kidnapped or tricked into sex slavery for travelling pedophiles, or having your children stolen to harvest chocolate. Oppression is being forced to abort your daughter by your in-laws who want a son. Oppression (as witnessed by my husband in eastern Afghanistan) is having your worth measured in cows or goats, or being forced to work in the fields all day while your husband does drugs and picks fights with neighboring tribes--and this is standard operating procedure in your country. Oppression is dying a slow, painful death by sucking chest wound because you've been taught that as a woman you cannot let male medics treat you, and a stray RPG just happened to hit your house.

I realize that there are cults and abusive relationships and Warren Jeffs types and more evil than I want to think about in our country--I don't want to discount the disgusting way that some women are treated here, I'm not saying that I disagree with all the women who described sexism in our culture, and I hesitate to call my own experience normative...but: I don't think that sexism to the point of oppression is what the average American "evangelical" woman experiences (to use a loosey-goosey term). Sometimes we need to take a step back, take a deep breath, thank God for what we've got, and look for ways to help those worse off than ourselves.

09 November 2011

Yep, we had a decent earthquake here. I didn't even realize it was one until I ruled out that it was the front door slamming, but there was mild panic at the PF's work (some of them saw the tsunami's devastation on the mainland firsthand).

The other day a Japanese lady said kawaii...to me!! Well, to my rain boots. Yes, she was definitely talking to me because Eva was nowhere in sight. We discussed in a couple of brief sentences the tragedy of there not being a Target on Okinawa.

Air Force mishandled remains of war dead - For once I'm not going to knock the AF here. This is a problem throughout the military/government/anybody who works a job they can't really be fired from, although what I'm about to say does not apply to everyone in those fields. I keep seeing heart-rending articles about how vets can't get jobs, but the ugly truth is that that's because many can't function in the real world--the terrible/great thing about the military is that you can get blown up, but you can't get fired. (You can get "fired", or forcibly job-changed, but you have to be really murderously awful to get the actual boot.) They're used to having ultimate job security and having everything from their housing to their healthcare taken care of. (As the military gets smaller, though, things are going to change.) My husband and I have even talked recently about how neither of us have been adults in the "real world" (although he did more or less pay his own way through college) and it's a scary place out there. He's grateful to be in the military but doesn't want to take it so much for granted that he stops doing his job (not that that is even remotely a possibility, with his personality).

Why "Twilight" is a misogynistic piece of hardboiled crapola - OK, OK, this is old news, I know. But this sums up why I will never let my teenage girls watch this until I think they have a considerable amount of maturity under their belts. (I only watch the movies, I do not read the books, and I borrow the movies instead of sending any money their way...)

23 October 2011

There was already considerable Facebookery on this topic, so forgive the repetition. We have a Dietz print in our living room--see it here. Due to its depressing nature, neither of us were eager to put it in such a central area, but it just matched so well. Seriously. The GNG has started noticing it and usually says "Ice cream!" Because she thinks the 1/503 patch looks like it features frozen dairyliciousness.

(Except there is no turquoise background and it says "FIRST ROCK".)

(Because everything in infantry world is "first", "of excellence" and in ALL CAPS.)

You know, ice cream cone or death from above, same difference.

Wait, why does the eagle need a parachute? I'm confused.

So sorry, back to my story:

But this morning she was breakfasting with the Pater Familias and she noticed it again. And then she proved that she has her dad's affinity for geopolitics and the like.